Blogject #11

Kindergarten is a time that we all remember as fun times, where we did not have a care in the world and nothing really mattered.  However, if we think more seriously about how social class was even established as early as kindergarten.  We have to deal with trying to fit in with the cool crowd.  If you were seen as gross for whatever reason, you were excluded.  Also if you were just quiet or shy, you were not included.  Even back in kindergarten you had to be good at sports to fit in. We used to play tackle football on the blacktop and everyone who did not want to play was considered as not part of the cool crowd.  My mom kept yelling at me for playing because I would always come home with holes in my pants.  Some days I would not want to play because I was tired of getting hurt all the time, but I would end up getting made fun of.   Sometimes I would even just hang out with other people that were not a part of the cool crowd so I would then become excluded.  I found myself excluding my friends, just so I could be included by the cool crowd. The part about not being able to say that you cannot play just would not work like many of the younger kids were talking about.  Some people just do not want to play, either because they do not enjoy sports or they are afraid of getting made fun of even more.  In today’s culture there are too many rules about how kids can play at recess so people are not left out and also rules about what they are allowed to do.  People have worked way to hard to make things fair for kids and now more kids than ever before have this sense of entitlement.  A lot of kids now feel that they can get their way at all times and parents have also influenced that.  

Blogject #10

The poet really uses words in her poems that capture the reader’s attention and.  She speaks so softly in her interview, but uses very strong words in her poems.  In these poems she talks about some things that people try to avoid to talking about such as death.  I can relate to these poems because I had to deal with a lot of death in my family from a very young age.  While these poems deal a lot with the death of a person close to you, they can also realate to anyone.  They can relate to people losing their best friend because they have to move, or losing friends because of going to college.  The art of storytelling is very relevant in our society today.  A good storyteller can cause people to pay attention to pretty much anything.  I do not like listening to poetry too much, but when Marie Howe was reading her poems I found myself very interested and she was really able to grab my attention.

Blogject #9

In Frank Deford’s “Sometimes, One is Enough”, Deford analyzes the positives of having a one game championship in the NBA, the NHL, and the MLB. According to him it would bring in more revenue from television commercials. Also it would also keep the “casual fans” more interested.  However, most of his arguments are based off of the Super Bowl.  The argument of comparing other sports championships to the Super Bowl.  The NFL is highest grossing league in all of professional sports in America.  It is unfair to compare other leagues with the leagues like the NFL.  Even with sports like College Basketball where they have playoffs with one game series, the casual fans do not stay interested until the end, because their brackets that they made are messed up.  His statement about the MLB not able to keep the “casual fans” interested does not really matter because the MLB is the one league that cares about preserving its past time.  Major League baseball has become known as America’s past time.  Also another sport that has a one series championship game is the MLS. Therefore, it does not translate directly to more revenue and keeping “casual fans” interested.  The “casual fans” really do not care too much about how long the series last, they only care if their team is in the championship game and that is why not too many people are interested.  Americans really do care about sports, because it gives us conversation and entertainment.  It has been the source of countless arguments like this one that is really just a proposition to cause some unnecessary debate.

Blogject #7

The one painting I found at the DIA was called Indian Summer, and it was painted by Jasper Francis Cropsey in 1866.  Cropsey used oil based paint on canvas and many different colors.  It is a painting of a fall landscape overlooking a valley with a river flowing through it. The beautiful fall colors are clearly evident in this picture.  They are truly the main part of this painting and give this piece meaning.  The use of colors in this painting captures the beauty of this piece and grabs the viewer’s attention.  This painting shows the true beauty United States.  Cropsey is showing the viewer how beautiful parts of the country are.  Cropsey is trying to show Americans the beauty of the frontier.  He shows how the Indians live in such a beautiful part of the country and is trying to keep people from cutting down so many trees and ruining the landscape.  He paints a few cut down trees to show how some of the beauty in this country is starting to become ruined due to greed and cutting down trees.  Cropsey is trying to show fellow Americans the true beauty of this country and warn them that it could all disappear quickly.

It reminded me a lot of when my dad and I went on a camping trip in cub scouts.  That trip was loads of fun. We shot BB guns, arrows, and went on lots of hiking trips.  Those hiking trips were the best part.  You were able to relax and just observe the beautiful nature.  Another one of the things that I remember well is the skit that we had to do in front of the whole camp.  We found these good campfire songs online before we went that would be funny, just in case a situation like this arose. One of the songs happened to be “God Bless My Underwear,” and the guy in charge of the camp had these famous fortune cookie boxers.  The guy in charge, Moody, was not a small man by any means, so these boxers were not small either and they made a great flag.  So our group leader snuck into Moody’s room and “borrowed” the boxers.  So our group stood up in front on the whole camp, put these boxers on a really tall stick and held it high in the air and started singing the song.  That skit was talked about at that camp many years later and is an experience that I will never forget.

Analyzing Ad

The Pepsi Twist advertisement is looking to advertise to a younger audience where they see the lime urinating in the Pepsi as humorous.  However, they are also trying to appeal to the parents to buy the younger children the Pepsi Twist.  This particular image is trying to get younger children to laugh so that they will talk their parents into buying this product.  This advertisement is ineffective, because it is not very attractive to the parental audience.  The white tile in the background resembles the tile that would be found in a bathroom.  The lime appears to be urinating in someone’s drink.  While a few people might see this humorous, more people would see this image as gross or disgusting, making this advertisement very ineffective.

"What's Love Got to do With It" Blog

Emotional impulse and physical attraction can sometimes lead to bad marriages.  Some people in today’s culture view marriage as a form of dating.  They feel like that if the marriage does not work out then they can just get a divorce.  However, marriage is really a commitment to the other person regardless of the emotional side of it.  When a person commits to marriage they claim that they will stay together “till death do us part,” meaning that no matter what happens they will stay together.  In Anjula Razdan’s “What’s Love Got to do With It,” she explores how people’s view on marriage and the dating culture has changed.

            Razdan claims that online dating is much more sufficient than the regular way of meeting people through everyday life.  While for some people that way may be quicker and easier, there is no still no alternative to the experience and knowledge gained by dating people in person rather than online. A person would not be able to tell what they wanted in their significant other if they did not have to experience “old-fashioned” dating.  Also sometimes people that are alike and have the same interests are not always the best matches.  My ex-girlfriend and I were complete opposites, but we ended up being really good for each other.  We had a lot of fun together, but then we had to move on because of college.  I would not have even known what I was looking for in a girl if I had not dated her.  I had no clue what I was looking for prior to meeting her.  While online dating can be beneficial to people who already know what they are looking for because they have already experienced dating, it is still necessary to go through the experience so that they can figure out what they want in a relationship.

            Online dating has also taken some of the physical attraction out of dating.  While there still pictures that the other person can see, those pictures can also be enhanced or of completely different people.  Therefore, while on an online dating website, you cannot always trust the physical attributes of a person forcing you to focus more on personality.  Online dating marriages have been seen as more successful because they take out the impulse marriages and cause the couples to focus more on personality.  Also results are kind skewed when the studies are conducted because most people on online dating sites are looking for someone that they can marry and spend the rest of their life with, while people who get married that did not use dating websites, could have been more of an impulse move based on a personal attraction.  While online dating takes out the physical attraction, it is still not as beneficial as “old-fashioned dating,” because that is how a person finds out what he or she is looking for in a significant other.

            Online dating can be sufficient for some people, but it cannot become the primary way of dating.  There is no replacement for trial an error in dating, which can only occur in person.  The best way to learn is from failure, and through online dating, there is not much possibility for failure causing some people to never know what they really are looking for in a relationship.  While online dating is a good service, it should not be the primary source for dating.

"How to Land Your kid in Therapy"

            People today are given a false sense of security when they are young that leads to more people in therapy as adults.  Parents have been much easier on their kids today giving them the life they always wanted, but sometimes are not able to let their kids fail, which gives their kids a false sense of security.  In “How to Land Your Kid in Therapy,” Lori Gottlieb discusses how parents today baby their children which causes problems with self esteem somewhere down the line.  Children are rewarded today for doing nothing, such as participation trophies in sports.  Children that are babied early on in life will not know how to deal with failure later on in life.

            As a referee for the past three years of my life I have first hand seen parents be overprotective and out of control.  I almost had to throw a parent out of a basketball game of six and seven year olds for being out of control.  Parents today have become way to controlling and see their kids in a light where they could never do anything wrong.  Rules have even changed dramatically in the past ten years when I went through the different sports programs for equality.  For example, in basketball our program director encourages us as refs to make sure that everyone has a chance to guard the best or tallest player so that they do not feel left out.  This rule comes from parents that feel their son is good enough to guard anyone on the court, when it can be completely demoralizing to a child if they just cannot stop the opposing player.  Also parents can get too involved with the coaches.  Most high school coaches now have to keep parents out of the gym so that they can coach the team their way and not be constantly criticized by parents.  Parents gotten way out of control when it comes to sports and need to let their son’s coaches and the refs take care of their children during the game.

            Parents also get out of control when it comes to school.  Whenever something goes wrong in school, some children have their parents come in and talk to the teacher, even in high school, about the problem, rather than learning how to deal with it themselves.  While parents need to stick up for their kids while they are younger, there comes a point in time when the child needs to learn how to deal with his own problems in school whether it is about grades or behavior.  Children should be able to deal with their own school problems on their own around junior high.  Also, with regards to in school bullying, some schools have implemented programs, like my grade school, where they hinder a child from knowing what is acceptable outside of school.  Schools nowadays are trying to protect people from being bullied rather than teaching them how to deal with it.  Parents now are trying to protect their children from problems rather than teaching them how to deal with their problems. 

            While there are parents that do baby their kids, there are still parents that know where to draw the line when it comes to protecting their kids or spoiling them my parents being one of those parents.  They taught me how to deal with situations in life rather than protecting me from them as a child.  Parents in this generation are starting to try and protect their kids from making the same mistakes, rather than teaching them, which leads to lower self esteem and can eventually land their kids in therapy. 

David Foster Wallace's "Kenyon Commencement Speech"

            People today can be very self-centered and set in their ways.  In David Foster Wallace’s “Kenyon Commencement Speech,” he challenges his audience to change their way of thinking.  He forces people to think about how the other person’s day is going, rather than just think about themselves.  Wallace hints at the age old saying that talks about walking a day in the other person’s shoes before getting to know them.  It was very interesting to hear this idea about slowing down and thinking about others before themselves.  Most people today do not stop and take the time to do this, myself included, because we claim that we, “don’t have time.”  He says that if you learn how to think, then everyday life can become easier.  It would help people slow down and not stress out so much about the little things in life.  I had never thought about things that way and it really opened my eyes to what learning to think really meant. 

I have always been told that the Jesuits teach people to think, rather than just teaching them facts and never fully understood what that meant.  Going to a Jesuit High School for four years before choosing to come here for college, I was told, “We are not just teaching you knowledge, but how to think, to better prepare you for college.”  This never really made any sense to me.  We had strict rules for everything we did academically and everything in general, not giving much opportunity to think for ourselves.  After listening to this speech it has helped me realize how to actually “think.”  Every day we are faced with challenges that need to be dealt with in different ways, and some are more difficult than others.  I was not able to realize that in High School the teachers were teaching us how too think by changing up the very strict guidelines to give us different ways to do things.

            On one random day during our senior year, we took a day off to watch a movie about suicide.  It was not just a documentary, but more of a life story where this guy becomes very popular and neglects his best friend and his best friend becomes depressed and commits suicide in front of the whole school.  He was torn apart, because he could have done something about it earlier on if he just took the time out of his day to spend time with his best friend that he neglected all throughout high school.  Later on in the movie he ends up saving another kid from committing suicide just by talking to him and making him feel important.  He is able to forget about society’s perception of him being popular and do what David Foster Wallace is challenging us to do. 

            Thinking outside of a comfort zone is not easy for anyone.  It takes guts and extreme self-control.  David Foster Wallace is challenging the graduates to go out in the world and think in a different way than most people.  He challenges them to think about the kind of day that the other person is having rather than just thinking about how bad their day is.  This speech was really interesting and it opened my eyes on how to think, and start thinking of others first before myself.

David Sedaris's "Old Faithful"

            Relationships can become boring at times, but that is not always a bad thing.    In “Old Faithful” by David Sedaris, Sedaris talks about how sometimes relationships that are not always exciting, can still be a good relationship in a very different way.  He uses many examples where many people at first glance will say there is no way that it could be relatable, because the examples and images he uses can cause the reader to become uncomfortable.  However, if the reader takes some time to look at the deeper meaning of the themes presented, they find that they can relate well.  Sedaris uses the boil to represent how much Hugh and the main character care about each other.  When Hugh willingly offers to “lance” off the boil, he is showing that he cares enough about the main character that he will pop a boil on his but because he is in a lot of pain.  It is not always about how fun or exciting that a relationship is but more about how much they care about each other.

            This story, while being very graphic and bizarre, had a very relatable deeper meaning.  Sometimes, in a relationship, things can seem boring to an outsider, but those are sometimes the moments that are missed the most while apart from each other.  With my girlfriend, some of the times I miss the most are when we are just with each other, whether it be sitting on her couch in the basement with my arm around her while watching a movie, or we are just laying down next to each other taking a nap.  Sometimes we end up spending hours on the phone not saying too much but not wanting to stop talking to each other.  David Sedaris shows that even if a relationship seems boring on the outside, the two people in the relationship can still be very happy. 

            When a relationship becomes boring at parts, it can sometimes cloud the deep love that a couple has for one another.  The main character felt that the relationship was growing boring and started to question the relationship when Hugh shows his love and devotion by offering to do something nasty, by popping his boil.  David Sedaris uses a very different approach that people are used to.  He uses very graphic images and themes that on the surface make people uncomfortable, but in the end conveys a deeper meaning that is very relatable. 

Mike Birbiglia's "Error at First Base"

The teenage years in one’s life can be a very difficult time filled with immense amounts of confusion.  In Mike Birbiglia’s “Error at First Base,” he talks about his first kiss while putting a humorous spin on it.  It is extremely amusing because it is very relatable.  He talks about his failed attempt at the amusement park after he got sick.  However, then he meets a girl named Sonya at a high school dance and kisses her during a slow song.  He mentioned that the people in the group that had not kissed a girl were growing smaller and smaller by the day.  Then he started to become embarrassed after he found out that Sonya thought he was a bad kisser, but was comforted by a fellow bad kisser.  I was one of the people in the group that had not had their first kiss yet till very late too.  I was even later.  It was not until around junior year homecoming dance.  It was very easy to relate to the different pressures that Birbiglia faced with having his first kiss.  While I did not have an embarrassing story like vomiting in front of a girl that I was trying to kiss, I was able to relate to it like many others are.  Mike Birbiglia takes an awkward moment in a teenager’s life and he makes it into something that everyone can relate to, while making it funny to address the stresses of being a teenager.

Growing up I was one of the last people to get my first kiss.  I was not quite like Birbiglia, but I had just never kissed a girl.  I went to an all guys school for high school, but there were a bunch of people that knew me there so I could not lie about having my first kiss already.  I was made fun of for a little while but then everyone forgot about it.  It took me so long to finally get my first kiss because there were times when I was not even trying because I kept forgetting that it was something that literally everyone had done before me.  It took me until my junior year homecoming until I kissed a girl.  It can sometimes be difficult to fit-in in high school and many teens struggle with it.  Mike Birbiglia shows the audience how funny the things we do in high school are, while conveying a deeper message in the fact that you are not alone in high school many people are struggling with the same things that you are.

Social status is still big in high school, but he conveys an idea that just being confident will allow you to fit in and give other people an opportunity to show how they are just like you.  When he said he was a just a bad kisser, someone was able sympathize with him and being a bad kisser.  This gave him support and showed him that other people struggle with the same things that he does.  While social status is a big thing while you are a teenager, Birbiglia shows that once you grow up it will not matter how you were viewed or what your social status was when you were in high school.

Kissing for the first time can create many stories that are talked out many years later.  It creates many awkward situations, but it can also cause you to grow up once you get past the awkwardness and it just becomes a funny story.  Once you get past all the pressures of high school and being a teenager you start to realize that certain things you have done earlier in life are just funny.  Mike Birbiglia is able to take an embarrassing story of himself, make it funny, and show people that it really does not matter how you were viewed when you were a teenager.